


The Reckless and the Brave

by orphan_account



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Drugs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 21:42:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7378429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an old church with a backpack and a syringe, Luke contemplates leaving.</p>
<p>One-shot based on ATL's song</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Reckless and the Brave

Luke sits alone in the pew frontmost in the old empty Methodist church, looking up at the stained glass image of James and John, the two brothers. Then his eyes fall to the statuette of Jesus on the podium where the reverend stands during sermon. He speaks out loud but can barely be heard amongst the empty walls: "I'll never be saved."  
            He stares up at the glass again, his long greasy fringe falling in his hollow eyes, and absentmindedly scratches his arm, up by the crook of his elbow. It's itched for two years straight now. It'll stop soon.  
            This was Calum's church. That's why he comes here every once in a while. He doesn't know why he tortures himself, but it's not like it'll go away if he stays away. So he comes. Because of the picture high up on the wall in blues and greens and golds. The two brothers.  
            Before Luke's arm started to itch by his own accord—before Luke ever even laid eyes on a dirty ounce of Mexican skag—he and Calum were riding the high road. Funny to think of it like that now. These days Luke rides a different high road.  
            He and Calum lived in a bubble—a precious little world of perfect grades and top ten of their freshman class in university and no drugs or alcohol or very late nights or problems save for which page numbers they needed to read by Wednesday and which batteries belonged in the graphing calculator.  
            Calum was always better than him though. If Luke was top ten then Calum was top five. If Luke wrote a ten page paper, Calum wrote twelve. If Luke was happy, Calum was radiant. Brilliant, handsome, kind, going nowhere but up. And he wanted Luke along with him every step of the way.  
            And then Calum made an accidental wrong turn in the maze they were running together, and the scientists hit the shock button. The last thing Calum saw before he died was the headlights of the car driving in the wrong lane as he rounded the curve, shining through the soft snowfall of the first signs of Colorado winter.  
            Luke wonders what Calum was thinking at that time. What song was playing on the radio. If Calum was feeling happy. If Calum was thinking about school or the future or what to have for dinner or maybe even him.  
            Calum used to say all the time, when they were feeling stressed or tired, overworked and rundown, that what they were doing in all their academics was harder and crazier and dumber than any soldier or any schizophrenic or any druggie. _Long live the reckless and the brave_. That was his tagline, his mantra. Maybe that's what Calum was thinking as the headlights came impossibly closer to him in the dark.  
            After that night, precious turned vicious. Luke didn't attend Calum's funeral three days later. He didn't want to see what was left of his best friend, whether it was a mutilated body or ashes or a cherrywood box. He couldn't stand it. He tried to go back to class, but Calum was everywhere he looked—in the bricks along the path they walked every day, in the trees where they sat for lunch Tuesdays and Thursdays, in the empty seat next to him in the classroom, behind his eyelids every time he blinked. Luke stopped attending school, Luke stopped going out, Luke stopped sleeping, Luke stopped eating. Luke lost thirteen pounds in two months.

           And then one day he went bravely to the back end of campus because that was the place where Calum first hugged him. Luke wasn't sure if he was in love with Calum, but he was sure that Calum was straight. But he sat on the bench anyway, wrapped tight in a sweater that Calum had left at his house once when they were studying together. His body wasn't able to keep him warm anymore, but Calum's black sweater could. He'd sat for more than an hour, breathing, half expecting Calum to walk around the corner and tell him it was all just a prank, he was okay and back for Luke and the perfect life they were supposed to have as business partners and, as Luke had always hoped, something more. But the person that walked around the corner was not Calum Hood, but someone who called himself Ashton.  
            Luke knew nothing about Ashton except for the fact that the powder that Ashton pulled out of his backpack looked like dirt and felt like broken heaven when he melted it and stuck it in his arm, up by the crook of his elbow. The ugly brown powder made him forget about what had happened. So he used, and little by little he continued to waste away.  
            Luke still knows nothing about Ashton except for his price per ounce. Ashton supplied him for half a year, and then Luke moved up to cleaner skag from the guy above Ashton. Now he keeps a bag with him all the time, and if he can carry a backpack, he keeps a spoon and a lighter and a syringe. He has his backpack today.  
            He scratches his arm again. It all started with that crash, that first bit of powder that was offered him, brown and weak and that left a bad taste in his mouth from his bloodstream. He has far better than that today. He spent seven hundred dollars on the half ounce he has today, but it doesn't matter that his money is gone. What he has in his back pocket is whiter, cleaner, far more powerful than any street China. What he has today is ninety-five percent pure. Even the small amount he has in his little green bag will shut his heart down in less than a minute. But he'll be seeing a lot better than James and John and Jesus for that time.  
            Luke looks at the stained glass and he thinks that maybe he'll see Calum soon. If what anyone's told him is true then he'll be going in exactly the opposite direction Calum went, but at this point he isn’t really aware enough to think about it too much. He just wants to take a breath, say goodbye, go into the chemical flood to his head and his heart and be gone.  
            It's as good a time as any.  
            Luke pushes his hair out of his eyes and his sleeve falls down off his too-thin wrist. He goes into his backpack and he pulls out everything he needs: the lighter, the spoon, the syringe, and this time a yellow cord. It's been getting harder to find his veins but with the cord it should be easy. If it was that easy for Calum to be taken out of the world then Luke thinks he deserves that too, as punishment.  
            He wraps the cord around his left arm, pulling with his teeth. He waits until he starts to feel his weak heartbeat in his fingertips and can see his macerated veins through his sickly skin. Then he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out he bag. He does his best to control the shake in his fingers as he taps the powder into the spoon and holds it up. He lets the bag float to the floor of the church and he picks up his lighter and melts the heroin. He drops his lighter and gets the syringe—uncapped, already used. He dips it into the liquid and draws it in.  
            His hands tremble and he holds the syringe to the bluest of his veins. He looks one more time up at the brothers in the glass. He speaks again, and it's even softer than before, but it slips through the smile on his lips anyway: "Long live the reckless and the brave."  
            He pushes the tip of the needle through his skin as he's shoved from behind and crumples to the floor.  
            The syringe slips from his arm and slides away. Luke finds himself on his back, cord around his arm, nowhere near the high he was expecting. Not high at all. Nothing went into him. He didn't even get the chance to push the plunger.  
            He looks sideways at the syringe and has a second to think that maybe Calum's spirit pushed him down or maybe it was Jesus or God or the Devil. But then Michael's boot heel comes down and shatters the syringe. Michael kicks away the remains of the plastic and heroin and turns back around and drops to his knees. He pulls the cord off Luke's arm and inspects the place on his elbow where all the puncture marks are.  
            "Did any go in? _Luke_. Answer me right now."  
            Luke opens his mouth and only a squeak comes out. He blinks rapidly a few times and shakes his head once.  
            Michael sighs audibly. "Oh thank God. Luke. Luke, don't cry."  
            Luke didn't know he was. He feels Michael's palms hold on to his face and wipe the tears away with his thumbs. Michael leans over him and stares into his eyes. His faded blonde hair is lit up from above by the light coming through the stained glass, and it creates a colorful halo. Luke thinks how pretty it is and all at once he forgets what the picture on the stained glass is in the first place. Michael's face blocks it out from his field of vision. All Luke can see through his watery eyes is the pale blurry circle of Michael's face surrounded by hazy colors, like an impossible moon in the midst of a star nebula.  
            "You were going to do it, weren't you?" Michael says quietly, touching Luke's face softly.  
            Luke blinks again and lets his eyes clear. Michael stares down at him. Luke says, "I miss him."  
            Michael nods. "I know. I know you do. You're going to be okay."  
            Luke looks up at his roommate and his boyfriend, the person who found him passed out in the city three months ago and who took care of him and who listened while Luke confessed everything—who he once was and what happened that made him who he is now. Michael knows Luke uses, Michael knows why Luke uses, Michael knows Luke will never get over Calum. But Michael also knows Luke is still capable of both love and happiness. Luke doesn't know it. But Michael will do—has been doing and continues to do—everything in his power to help him learn.  
            "You're going to be okay," Michael says again.  
            Luke breathes in and it rattles in his chest. He's still sick, very sick. But not as sick as he was three months ago.  
            He says, "Michael."  
            Michael wraps his hands under Luke's shoulders and pulls him to sitting. Luke slumps forward and Michael catches him. "Okay. Luke." He kisses the side of Luke's head. "Let's go home. You're done now. It's over. Let's go home."  
            Luke presses his face into Michael's shoulder.  
            Michael rubs Luke's back, feels Luke's spine under his hands through the black sweater Luke wears nearly every day unless Michael is hand washing it for him. "I'll play you that song you like. Will you listen to me? I like when I have someone to listen to my songs. Will you?"  
            Luke nods. "Yes."  
            Michael kisses his head again. "Good. That's good, Luke. I'll play any song you want. Let's go home."  
            Michael starts to stand up but Luke wraps his arms around Michael's back and squeezes. In Luke's head, it's probably the tightest hug he's ever given, but to Michael it's incredibly weak, as if all Luke is doing is placing his arms on him.  
            Michael asks, "Is it done, Luke?"  
            Luke doesn't answer.  
            "Luke. Tell me if it's over."  
            Luke leans back just a little and turns his face up to look at Michael. "It's over."  
            Michael stares right into his eyes. "He wouldn't want it to keep going. And neither do I. Your song's been sung, Luke. It's time to keep going now. Keep living. Are you sure it's over?"  
            Luke feels his lips tremble and he takes another wheezing breath. "It's over. I promise. For you."  
            Michael shakes his head. "For both of us."  
            In a brief moment of clarity, Luke understands that "us" doesn't include him. He nods, and can't say anything more.  
            "All right," Michael says. "Let's go home."  
            Michael gets to his feet and reaches his hands down. Luke takes them and Michael pulls him up. He wraps an arm around Luke's waist and gives him a smile and Luke leans his head on his shoulder.  
            The two walk out, heading into the crisp air of the start of Colorado summer, leaving the backpack and everything once in it behind to be watched over by the brothers in the glass.

**Author's Note:**

> Any quotes, song titles/lyrics, and things of that type are not my work and I take no credit for them (though I do thank those who made them for their incredible artistry).


End file.
